Sense-Making and the luxury of a two-lane highway

I am back in Kent after 8 days on the road. I was in Columbus, Ohio, October 24-29 attending the annual meeting of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. The first day was a workshop in Sense-Making Methodology led by Dr. Dervin and that set the tone for a worthwhile conference. I also took in a couple of NHL games, which was a first, and I was able to draw on the expertise of a couple of different hockey fans to help my Sense-Making approach to the situation. 

Following the conference I drove west to visit family in Indiana for a couple of days before heading home this morning. The drive from Columbus to New Castle, Indiana was on I-70 and just not a very enjoyable drive because of the heavy traffic, especially truck traffic. Yes, it is a more direct route and supposedly one makes better time driving on an interstate highway, but I find myself unable to enjoy the scenery and rather tense from the driving because of the constant diligence one must pay to all the vehicles sharing the same couple of lanes. 

So on the return trip I took the luxury of staying off the interstate, for the most part, and enjoying the much slower pace and less congested lanes of US highways 36, 127, 30 and Ohio route 47. I rationalized the longer travel time as necessary for exploring my new home state and an exercise in patience. Why did I need to be in a hurry to get back to Kent anyway? Sure, I had been living out of a suitcase for 8 days and I have several projects on the to do list, but there is always something on the to do list and what difference would a couple of extra hours make anyway? 

I passed through towns with names like Palestine, Versailles, and Wapakonata. Versailles is a beautiful, historical village with several interesting statues downtown. I have included a picture of just one of them. Wapakonata is home to the Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum. It may be quite some time before I ever visit these communities again, but I have much context from which to work in my Sense-Making of this situation.

I saw corn pickers gathering the harvest, which brought back childhood memories taking me back to other times and places along my phenomenological horizon. The sky was blue, the leaves were beautiful, the lakes were shimmering, and life was good. I found myself thinking of William Least Heat Moon's book, Blue Highways. I also missed a couple of turns, had to backtrack, and stop and consult a map more than once, but it all helped me in the ongoing bridging the gap in this new situation in my life.  

Bridging the gap to a new home

I apologize for the long hiatus. On August 8 I moved 950 miles from Emporia, Kansas to Kent, Ohio on a quest to start a new career as a professor in Library and Information Science at Kent State University. I have lived in Kansas for the past 24 years and 35 of the past 38 so this is a big change, full of many new experiences intensified by the fact that I am here by myself. To say that it has been a learning experience is a big understatement.

There have been several gaps encountered along the way:

• The confusion of finding a place to live from a distance
• The angst of living alone for the first time ever in my life
• The confusion of a new geographical environment
• The riddles of a new occupation in a new working culture
• The muddles of being the new member of an established community

There have been episodes of high anxiety, second-guessing, and emotional unsettledness, but the good news is that a little over a week ago, while riding my bike home from work, it occurred to me that this is home. In the next few weeks I will report on the ways by which I arrived at this outcome in terms of Dervin's Sense-Making Methodology. 

Please stay tuned.